Game mechanics aren't explained well? and more

[peppypanda17]

So I recently finished a playthrough but I had a few gripes once I got to the end of the game.

-First off, the stock auctioning thing. I thought we were supposed to spend our money on upgrades and whatnot and just make more money than our competitors. However, all of a sudden the game goes "oh hey yeah I know you spent all your money on upgrades but actually you should have been saving it all for these stock auctions I'm not going to tell you about until it's too late". I get that it's an incentive to save up money, but what kind of an incentive is it if I don't even know it's going to happen?

-How to play the game and how to use the upgrades are not explained very well. The beginning tutorial helps since the first area is pretty basic (no rocks/gas, etc) but for example, when it got to the area with gas, it wasn't explained at all. I'm currently in a second playthrough of the campaign to see if I somehow missed something when the gas was introduced and if it was explained. The only thing I can remember it saying is that it alluded to the fact that something will happen to the oil being pumped out if a gas pocket was connected to the oil. So imagine my surprise when, for my second playthrough, I search "Turmoil game tips" and in the results is a video from the developer explaining how gas can be fed to left or right inc to increase the price of oil there. Does anyone remember that being explained during the game? Because I certainly don't. and what's more, another video from the developer is one explaining the "thermal upgrade" which I had never even heard of.

-That brings me to my third gripe, which is that the upgrade system is an issue. Since it only shows 4 upgrades at a time at a store, even though there was a new upgrade introduced, if I don't buy the previous upgrades, I can't try the newer upgrade out. This is incredibly annoying because I don't want to be forced to buy old upgrades that I don't want in order to get the newly introduced ones. I was again surprised when I found out that you can open and close pipes (found this out in the developer video again), which was an upgrade that I just never got to.

Those are the first few problems I can think of at this moment. Overall, I left my first playthrough very unsatisfied. I shouldn't have to go searching for how the game works, especially when this search yields info from the developers that could have just been out in the game by them.
Also, can someone let me know if I'm wrong? Like I said, I may have actually missed some dialog boxes or something so I want to know if anyone has the same issues or remedies to my issues.

[Gamious]

Hi peppypanda17, thanks for your feedback. We'll comment on the issues your brought up seperately:

About the stock auctioning: rest assured, you'll have plenty of time to make enough money to acquire enough stocks. The reason we introduced it after a while is that we don't want to bombard you with everything at once. For this reason, new mechanics are introduced gradually. It's always tricky as a developer to provide a nice game flow (a balance between preventing boredom and preventing overwhelming new stuff to do/learn. It's probably not possible to do this in a satisfying enough way for each and every player.

About the how to play the game: Have you checked out the Mayor's Tips at the Townhall? It's essential to learn how to use gas, as this is the way to really rake in the big bucks. The thermal upgrade is introduced at the start of the final area (snow).

About the upgrade system: this is great feedback. We should probably indeed show that there are more upgrades available than the four that are visible when you click on the Stable, Workshop, or Factory.

All in all, a huge part of your frustration probably comes down to you not being in the know about the possibilities that natural gas offers. And therefore, not having enough cash to buy upgrades and stocks. It's always very tricky to let players enjoy the way the game it is meant to be, while not bothering them with tutorial texts all the time. Playtests showed us that too much text simply isn't read by a lot of players, so we had to find a way to let them learn in an 'organic' way. The downside is of course that some players miss little things here and there, and we'll continue to optimize the game to prevent this. Your feedback is very helpful, so thanks for that.

[peppypanda17]

Yeah on the stock thing, I don't know, maybe I just wasn't doing well at getting enough money to have accumulated enough to get all the stocks. That's why I'm trying another playthough to see if I can make more money this time.

I personally have no problem reading text if it's useful for me to learn how to play the game. I always try to read or play all of a tutorial in order to learn as much from the game, but I guess I'm in the minority haha

[Gamious]

:) Good luck with the second playthrough!